Calm Rockers

I made this playlist a long time ago when I had napster (subscription service, not the illegal one).  At any rate I wanted to put it here for archiving, eventually I want to buy all these tracks.

A short description of the playlist is that is basically all calm songs by hard rock/punk bands (mostly).  I really like it, but I’ll let you decide. (FYI – they are not in any particular order, and some are explicit)

• Swing Life Away – Rise Against
• Good Riddance (Time of your life) – Green Day
• Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
• The Gift – Seether
• Afterglow – INXS
• The Leaving Song – AFI
• Lonely Day – System of a Down
• Wish You Were Here (1992 Digital Remaster) – Pink Floyd
• Good Times (Album Version) – Tommy Lee
• Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups

These weren’t a part of the original playlist but, I would probably add them as well (although I’m not sure they fit the mood of the playlist quite right, so I might not add them):

• Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
• Welcome to the Black Parade – My Chemical Romance
• Handlebars – Flobots

Anyway if anyone else trys out these tracks togethor you should tell me if you like it.

- Legit

Good thoughts from someone who unplugged!

In my blog reading I ran across Wayne Porters blog who apparently went off the grid (pretty completely) for 6 months, he has some really good and important reflections that I agree with:

“Most people no longer understand anything about the technology they use everyday and because of this ignorance many people use it without good stewardship. We drive cars we cannot fix, eat food we cannot make or produce, and many operate in an environment they do not understand with a false sense of security. We run and gun this technology with fuel that has probably reached its peak point.

This is what worry’s me about a lot of new technologies, a lot of bleeding edge science and engineering has scientists saying “this stuff is great, but we need to make sure to look at the ethics of it as well” (case in point, 6th paragraph: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/02/we-are-becoming-a-new-species-we-are-becoming-homo-evolutis.ars).  I’m always worried that as the technology and science trickles down to consumer level the ethics of it are lost because of what Porter is talking about.  Not understanding or being ignorant of the way in which something is created or what is required to make it work or its impacts, prevents people from seeing the ethical issues surrounding it, which prevents good stewardship.  It’s important to understand at least a little bit where and how something (technology, scientific process, scientific finding, engineering feats, etc.) came to be, in order to realize its ethical and moral impact on society.

This is one of the reasons that Artificial Intelligence research interests me so much, because at the very deepest and advanced areas are thousands of unanswered questions about the ethics of creating machines that “can” be trusted or are designed to be trusted.  I think a lot of science is like this, it reminds me of a quote of the mathematician in the original “Jurassic Park” movie:

“They are more concerned about whether or not they can to care about whether or not they should” (paraphrasing).

Porter highlights the overall ethics of creating social spaces in technology:

“I think we have finally sold our soul for digital trinkets, our privacy for another 10% discount, our lives for cashback, our planet for convenience and our autonomy to mega-corporations knowing full well they will destroy the very core of the communities in which we live. Not that it matters, we don’t know our neighbors anyway and we are prepared to mortgage future generations lives and their planet for plastic.”

Good stuff, you can read his entire post here: http://www.wayneporter.com/2009/03/22/the-end-of-wayne-unplugged/

It is well worth the read.
- Legit

Some recent Vimeo favorites

I have come to find that I am attracted to the juxtaposition of fast/happy video/life moments to soft and calming/reflective music. It makes you look at life a little differently. Here are some recent favorite videos some of them display this juxtaposition.

Voyage

Coeur de Pirate || Comme des enfants

You Put The  “FUN”  in Adventure Central!

A Thousand Words

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn

lost in a moment

A Summer I’ll Never See Again

And of course a cycle video to balance things out:

It’s Your Ride

And of course WordPress.com still has to get away from its youtube bias, so sorry I can’t embed them.

Working Better

I think this was posted on lifehacker.com a while back, but it ended up as being just an image that I downloaded without any metadata attached so I’m not really sure where it came from originally.  Anyway, I’m going to post it here so that I don’t forget it since I think its a nice simple list of how to be a better worker:

How to work better.

1. Do one thing at a time.

2. Know the problem.

3. Learn to listen.

4. Learn to ask questions.

5. Distinguish sense from nonsense.

6. Accept change as inevitable.

7. Admit mistakes.

8. Say it simple.

9. Be calm.

10. Smile.

I think it is interesting how well it parallels a lot of the mini lessons that I learned from my software engineering classes.  Furthermore its nice to have a short list that makes since rather than some of the lists out there today that are way too long to actually help with anything (eg. ‘72 ideas to simplify your life‘ — kind of ironic that this long complex list is on simplifying things).

Anyway, enjoy your respective days!

- Legit

Some of my favorite Ted Talks

I’ve been watching some more of the TED.com talks lately and thought I would share some of my favorites, so that you can watch them (if you want to ).  So here we go:

Jonathan Harris: The Art of Collecting Stories

This one is inspiring, he creates some really ingenious interfaces for exploring the various stories of his and that he has collected.  The thing that is even more inspiring is the fact that he is interested in finding out what peoples stories, it sheds light on how many people I pass everyday without knowing anything about them.

Clifford Stoll: 18 Minutes with an Agile Mind

Clifford Stoll is famous (to me at least) for writing “the Cuckoos Egg” which is his narrative of how he brought down a KGB hacker.  I really enjoyed this video not only because of his enthusiasm but because he makes a good point about what science is and how the “simple” things are some of the most complex and interesting.

Emily Oster: What do we really know about the spread of AIDS?

For years people have been pouring money and other aide into fighting the AIDS problem in Africa, Emily Oster shows why it doesn’t make a difference.  This talk is a classic example of trying to fight a problem without looking at the deeper cause, which makes the fact that she was willing to look deeper really awesome.  I also really like this talk because it portrays how easy it is to throw money and such at a problem and then turning around assuming it will fix itself, when it wont necessarily.

Joshua Klein: The Amazing Intelligence of Crows

An amazing example of how intelligent Gods creations are, and a cool example of collaboration in Nature.

Ben Saunders: Three Things to know before you Ski to the North Pole

This inspires the outdoors man in me, this is a tale of an incredible and dangerous trip by ski to the North Pole.

Hans Rosling: Debunking Third World Myths with the best Stats you’ve ever seen

This talks shows some more innovation on how to visualize stats in a more understandable and interesting way.  And along the way Rosling gives some interesting facts about the world.

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from Spaghetti Sauce

The story of how we got multiple varieties of spaghetti sauce and other foods as well as an insightful look at how we aren’t all the same (and how we don’t always realize it).

I’ll finish with the two most moving talks:

Billy Graham: Technology, Faith and Human Shortcomings

Billy Graham is a bit out of place for TED but I’m glad that this talk is scattered among the more secular nature of the other TED talks.  In his talk Graham points out that there is more to life that silicon and technology, he shows, in an humbling way how our addiction to finding the newest best thing isn’t going to bring about the end of suffering and how, even in todays age, we must rely on God to give us true meaning and purpose.

Chris Jordan: Picturing Excess

This talk is also a bit out of place, especially in America, Chris Jordan uses his art to demonstrate the monstrous amount of excess in todays society.  Jordan also takes the opportunity to put his heart on his sleave in a very moving expression of his opinion of the excess.  (NOTE: there is one picture of nudity in this video, but it highlights the excess and fits in with his talk, so just cover the screen during that part)

Hope you enjoy!

- legit